Spectator Chat?

BlackWolf · Post by **BlackWolf** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:25 am

ok.. this has prolly been discussed b4... and i didnt feel like sifting thru 1000's of posts to find it.. but.. is it possible to enable chat in spectator mode??

umm reason being.. it may help new players to ask questions about the game and watch others play while learning.. also.. at times.. ppl dont feel like playing.. just chatting...

if there is another discussion on this topic.. plz can someone post me the link.. im keen to read what u all said

oh and luci??? no laughing

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:38 am

heh heh ha ha ho ho hee hee hooo hoooo.

Um, anyway. As I understand it, not at the present time. To chat, you have to be in the game, and a spectator is just a hack that allows you to be on the server and get a feed, but not actually be in the game.

As far as I know, there's a huge factoring of gGame scheduled sometime after the 0.2.8 release (for all I know, z-man's been secretly working on it already, he hates that file), and one of the stated goals is to give spectators more options to participate. And also more options for admins to restrict spectator behavior to prevent abuse.

BlackWolf · Post by **BlackWolf** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:42 am

aah ok thx luci.. *smacks him for laughing* umm i kno at times ive been in spec mode and there has been numerous times i have wanted to say something.. tho not get into the game to say it.. thx for answering.. and will see what comes out in the newer versions....

oh and..

.. lmao

iceman · Post by **iceman** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:29 am

imho I think the only thing that should be worked on is autokick of spectators with a message that reads "You have been kicked. Reason: Spectators are banned"

sorry had to let off some steam there

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:35 am

Heh. What about admins that want to catch somebody doing something really nasty so they can get their IP address logged? An alias won't do, admins can be picked out by their pings. You'd need to spectate, and you'd need to access the remote admin functions (where you can ban somebody).

There's also the idea of using spectators to build a separate chat room for a waiting room, where a server could accept 8-10 additional players that are place in a waiting room without a feed so they can chat and wait until it's their turn to play.

iceman · Post by **iceman** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:36 am

a small price to pay

BlackWolf · Post by **BlackWolf** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:38 pm

Lucifer wrote:Heh. What about admins that want to catch somebody doing something really nasty so they can get their IP address logged? An alias won't do, admins can be picked out by their pings.

*nods*

mmm.. a waiting room.. could really use that in fortress at times.. comes with its own probs tho.. as in the server determining first in WR then first in server.. tho for u tech guys.. thats prolly nothing to work out

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:50 pm

Also, team spawn point shuffling needs to be addressed before the current spectator mode is reworked because right now, on a busy server, if you quit the game to try to reshuffle your spawn point (Fortress, mostly), someone could join and block you out. So you go to spectator mode for a round, which keeps you in the game, but still gets you a new place in the lineup.

Walking Tree · Post by **Walking Tree** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:31 pm

for people who only want to chat, there is IRC. #armagetron on irc.freenode.net needs some livening up !

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:35 pm

No argument here, except that IRC != in-game waiting room.

Maybe if we had an autodial kinda thing, where the game would keep logging into the server until it could get in, but I suspect a lot of server admins wouldn't appreciate that.

BlackWolf · Post by **BlackWolf** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:39 pm

Walking Tree wrote:for people who only want to chat, there is IRC. #armagetron on irc.freenode.net needs some livening up !

was told about that earlier today...isnt that just for tech talk tho?? and not "noobs" like me who dont understand that stuff??

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:43 pm

NOt really, no. It's just a place to hang out, people talk about whatever they want there.

BlackWolf · Post by **BlackWolf** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:02 pm

hmm k.. will go check it out later... thx for the info....

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:57 pm

A perfect job for Joda

Yes, there could be several spectator levels:
- Invisible: not even the server admin sees your player (he'll notice the logon, of course), like it is now. No chat, no admin commands.
- Stealth: Invisible to the players, but visible to the server admin. Can issue ingame admin commands.
- Spectate: Everyone sees me, I can chat, but don't play.
- Play.

Making a waiting room where you don't get fed game syncs may be difficult. It would be possible currently to send just the console log, but concerning objects, it's either all or nothing. Unfortunately, players and game objects are in the same bucket, and if you don't get the players, you don't get chat.

joda.bot · Post by **joda.bot** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:00 pm

@z-man: I'm on it then ...

after the team balancing stuff.